Frame deprecated - Transitioning from Frame to Border with Shadow
This is an article in the Developer Tips series, which offers concise hints to enhance productivity. You can access all the articles in this series here.
Border:
From .NET MAUI 9 onwards, the Frame control has been marked as obsolete, paving the way for more robust Border control.
The Border serves as a container control, akin to the Frame; however, it exhibits significantly greater flexibility, enabling the user to delineate any enclosed geometric shape.
Transitioning from Application's MainPage to Window's Page
This article analyzes a significant change introduced in .NET MAUI 9, specifically the deprecation of the Application’s MainPage property, which has been replaced by the Window’s Page property.
The MainPage has existed since the inception of Xamarin.Forms, at which time it functioned as a single-window UI framework.
Nevertheless, the design of .NET MAUI incorporates the concept of a Window to effectively support Desktop form factors, including WinUI and Mac Catalyst.
November is set to be an exceptionally significant month for .NET developers globally, as a new version of .NET will be officially released during its annual event, .NET Conf. Similar to previous years, this year’s event will also be conducted virtually, allowing participation online. The highly anticipated .NET 9 is scheduled for release during this conference, which will take place over three days from Tue, Nov 12, 2024, to Thu, Nov 14, 2024. Please mark your calendars accordingly.
Quite like .NET 7, .NET 9 is also a short-term support (STS) release, which will be supported for 18 months till mid-May 2026. Even-numbered releases are LTS whereas odd-numbered are STS. More details on the release lifecycle are here. The support for .NET 6 (the previous LTS release) ends (more details here), with .NET 7 already out of support, and .NET 8, the current LTS release, has another 2 years of support till early Nov 2026.
.NET Release Schedule
Due to the underlying external dependencies, the support policy of .NET MAUI differs significantly from .NET, each major release will be supported only for 18 months. So, if you’re using .NET MAUI 8, support will cease by mid-May 2025 (in another 6 months). Hence, it’s necessary to plan for your app migration to .NET MAUI 9. An article has already been published detailing the comprehensive features of .NET MAUI 9.
Syncfusion.Maui.Toolkit NuGet package - A collection of free and open-source .NET MAUI controls
Yesterday, Syncfusion, a prominent vendor of software components, announced its dedication to contributing to .NET MAUI and the release of the initial set of free and open-source controls for .NET MAUI, which is now available as a NuGet package titled Syncfusion.Maui.Toolkit.
Microsoft has gladly welcomed Syncfusion’s open-source contributions, a gesture seen as a positive step for .NET MAUI confirming the ongoing commitment to the cross-platform framework.
Syncfusion is utilizing its proficiency in developing software components to collaborate with Microsoft, with the objective of significantly enhancing .NET MAUI. Their team is already making a noteworthy impact.
Although the fundamentals remain the same, the preceding articles were published after the initial version of the MVVM Toolkit, and a lot has transpired since then. An updated article is being prepared and published soon.
Blazor Hybrid represents an exemplary integration of cross-platform .NET MAUI and the Blazor components.
It facilitates the utilization of C# expertise in the development of various applications, including those for Desktop, Mobile, and Web platforms.
However, there are instances when these disparate components must communicate with one another for the integration to function effectively.
Whenever the necessity arises to facilitate communication between loosely coupled components, messaging represents the most effective solution.
.NET MAUI 9 is the next major version of the cross-platform application UI framework. An article detailing the significant features of this version has already been published and can be accessed here.
This October, join David and Rachel as they discuss the latest developments in the realm of .NET MAUI during the monthly community standup.
Remember to join live on Thu, Oct 3 at 17:00 UTC. Click the link to access the timing in your local or preferred time zone.Note, that it’s back to its usual schedule.
Update: The community links for this month’s standup will be updated here.
Happy coding. Stay connected as we continue to learn and share the experiences from this exciting journey of being a .NET developer.
Undoubtedly, CommunityToolkit.Mvvm, aka Microsoft MVVM Toolkit, has recently become one of the most popular NuGet packages among MVVM developers.
It effectively abstracts away the boilerplate code, enabling developers to concentrate exclusively on the task.
However, after the release of package version 8.3 and later, while building the project referencing this Toolkit has encountered failures, accompanied by perplexing error messages like System.TypeInitializationException or Found conflicts between different versions of 'WinRT.Runtime' that could not be resolved. when targeting the Windows 10 platform.
Following its annual release cadence, Apple formally announced its updated hardware and software during the Apple Event in early September.
iOS and iPadOS have been upgraded to v18, while macOS has been elevated to v15, codenamed Sequoia. Additionally, the dev tool Apple Xcode has been updated to v16.
Regardless of the development framework, apps submitted to the App Store must always target the most recent iOS SDK. Therefore, support for the latest version of Xcode is crucial.
.NET MAUI has announced its support for Apple Xcode 16 in the stable channel of .NET 8 SDK. More details here.
.NET 9, the next major version of .NET following the annual release cadence, will be a Short-Term Support (STS) release, which will be supported for 18 months from release.
This release is packed with a broad set of features. The primary highlight is the support for Native AOT across app models.
In this article, we’ll explore the high-level features of .NET MAUI 9.
